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^^^Most people would agree that SF is easily a top 3 food city in America if not #2, perhaps a tie for #1. Philly may not even be top 5. The poster from Charleston is in a very very compelling food city his or herself.
It's not outrageous to give SF gastronomy, as most people would without question. Again, it can be argued that SF/Bay Area is the only city/metro in America that gives NYC a run for its money, overall (and certainly in fine dining). Of course certain cities do certain things the best. Don't hate me for comparing SF to NYC again, but in this case it's an obvious comparison for so many reasons.
What's your personal experience with Philly's food scene?
As far as finance, SF is the 3rd in the world according to GAWC and 5th in the world according to GFC GaWC Research Bulletin 432 GFCI
As far as education, the Bay Area has one of the strongest collection of graduate schools in.the world, among the most decorated and highly regarded faculty and one of the most highly educated and intellectual populations in the world.
Also, relatively recently, the Bay Area has muscled it's way to prominence in media, energy, telecommunications, automotive design r&d, and really any industry related to technology.
San Francisco is a beast as far as the arts,
ranking among the world's top 10 cities.
Seriously, Monty? You've been leaning on GaWC pretty hard lately. Seems to me, a year or two ago, when Philly was Alpha-, you had a problem with their methodology, if memory serves. Hmmmm....curious.
Nevertheless.
I know it's hard for some of our NorCal friends to accept, but, yeah....Philly is home to some national and international cultural and economic heavyweights. I don't know what you guys think we do all day, but shopping for Tri-Corner hats with Rocky and Adrian down on Cheesesteak St., takes up a surprisingly small percentage of our average day.
As for education, I'd stack UPENN up against any school in the Bay, anyday of week. Collectively, Penn, Drexel, Temple, 'Nova, and St. Joe's are about as fine a collection of schools as you're going to find anywhere in the US. Not to mention Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr, Haverford, LaSalle....the various medical schools and teaching hospitals. We can get our .edu on with anybody:
"It's true. Boston, San Francisco, and Research Triangle Park (at the intersection of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina) may have earned their startup cred first, but Philadelphia is quickly becoming the go-to place if you want to launch a medical or health tech company. Thanks to Philadelphia's University City Science Center, which started as an urban revitalization project, the City of Brotherly Love is now churning out innovative startups at an impressive clip, developing everything from technology to detect foodborne illnesses to therapeutics for diseases like hemophilia and Alzheimer's."
Glaxo SmithKline, Merck, Johnson & Johnson, Teva, Pfizer, Iroko, and many, many more are either headquartered in the region, or have a significant presence here.
Finance? This oughta geek you out, Monty: There are well over a trillion dollars in assets under management in the region. And that's just one firm:
"Comcast Corporation, formerly registered as Comcast Holdings,[note 1] is an American mass media company and is the largest broadcasting and cable company in the world by revenue.[3] It is the largest cable company and home Internet service provider in the United States,[9] and the nation's third largest home telephone service provider. Comcast services U.S. residential and commercial customers in 40 states and the District of Columbia.[10] The company is headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania."
Yeah; they're a**holes. But they're our a**holes. And if the merger with Time-Warner goes thru they'll have a stranglehold on....whatever it is they do. God help us all.
Energy?: I have serious reservations about this; I would prefer to see equivalent or greater development and investment in renewable energy. However the potential economic impact is undeniable. The associated environmental impact is what concerns me.
Arts and Culture organizations in Philadelphia. Most with national/international reputations. I started to do a whole commentary, but it was an embarrasment of riches. The list speaks for itself. This is just off the top of my head; I just copied and pasted 'til I got tired. I could do this for days and never run out. Weeks maybe. Months, even.
Location: Watching half my country turn into Gilead
3,530 posts, read 4,172,482 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LiveFrom215
Arts and Culture organizations in Philadelphia. Most with national/international reputations. I started to do a whole commentary, but it was an embarrasment of riches. The list speaks for itself. This is just off the top of my head; I just copied and pasted 'til I got tired. I could do this for days and never run out. Weeks maybe. Months, even.
The Bay Area seems to think that having hipsters and Chinatown mean they have culture. Sure, there is some counterculture history there, as well as impressive cultural events and museums. But it doesn't compare to LA, Chicago, or the BosWash cities.
^^^I'm pretty sure that's not the case. Underachieve in scale relative to New York? Yea. But compared to Philly, Boston, or its peers? Nah
I'm not heavily involved in any arts scenes, but SF has a larger and quite more robust theater district than Philadelphia with many of its theaters still intact and in use and the scene that goes along with that (only a few cities really have this sort of thing left, New York being the obvious, but Chicago, LA, perhaps Boston, and SF), and every kind of theater/dance/musical company you can think of.
SF Ballet, the Opera, the Symphony and a host of other organizations are world class. SF's Opera is one of the best, and it's in a beautiful Beaux Arts opera hall.
There is SF Jazz, which opened a new center recently, as well as theater companies such as ACT, etc that are very well known. Not to mention the fact that with wealth and prominence comes a demand for art - few cities have as many art galleries and reputable galleries at that as SF.
Then there are the museums. SFMOMA is seriously big time. For fine arts, among a whole host of smaller museums you have 3 other large ones: De Young, Legion of Honor (in a beautiful replica of the French Palais de la Legion d'Honneur, and it has the largest collection of Rodin on its grounds with over 100 works including a Thinker), and the Asian Art Museum, also in a beautiful large Beaux Arts building.
Not to mention there is the Contemporary Jewish Museum with an addition by Libeskind and the African Museum of the Diaspora. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, etc etc.
I agree that SF is lacking compared to say New York. I do think SF is at least an equal to Philly, if not above it in terms of arts/culture.
Don't forget that Manhattan is yuppified, but no place on earth has such a concentration of arts/culture. Opera tickets start at $200-300. A lot of this stuff ain't cheap. A poor artsy fartsy city may spring a generation of artists, but it's not going to support the level of opera/theater/arts museums relying on large endowments/donations that a wealthy city will.
SFMOMA raised all private funding for a $600M addition and additions to its collections and outreach. That just isn't happening in a non-yuppified city.
And a yuppified city will build great cultural venues that attract a non-yuppified class of people looking for a great scene. You guys really have it all wrong.
If you want great culture, art, and everything at your disposal, you're not going to go to Detroit before you go to NYC, Chicago, LA, SF, Philly, Boston, DC, etc. If you're a starving artist - you might take an easier route of living and go to Detroit, or you may throw your chips in and go for a more expensive city in the hopes you'll get picked up by a prominent gallery. Swings both ways. If you play in the Symphony, you're likely unionized and paid very well and your goal is to play in a Big Five (of which Philly has one and SF doesn't). If you can't get into a Big Five, you always have DC at the Kennedy Center or SF at Davies (both top 5 for pay) or Pittsburgh or LA (also top 5/10).
Location: Watching half my country turn into Gilead
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Quote:
Originally Posted by anonelitist
^^^I'm pretty sure that's not the case. Underachieve in scale relative to New York? Yea. But compared to Philly, Boston, or its peers? Nah
I'm not heavily involved in any arts scenes, but SF has a larger and quite more robust theater district than Philadelphia with many of its theaters still intact and in use and the scene that goes along with that (only a few cities really have this sort of thing left, New York being the obvious, but Chicago, LA, perhaps Boston, and SF), and every kind of theater/dance/musical company you can think of.
SF Ballet, the Opera, the Symphony and a host of other organizations are world class. SF's Opera is one of the best, and it's in a beautiful Beaux Arts opera hall.
There is SF Jazz, which opened a new center recently, as well as theater companies such as ACT, etc that are very well known. Not to mention the fact that with wealth and prominence comes a demand for art - few cities have as many art galleries and reputable galleries at that as SF.
Then there are the museums. SFMOMA is seriously big time. For fine arts, among a whole host of smaller museums you have 3 other large ones: De Young, Legion of Honor (in a beautiful replica of the French Palais de la Legion d'Honneur, and it has the largest collection of Rodin on its grounds with over 100 works including a Thinker), and the Asian Art Museum, also in a beautiful large Beaux Arts building.
Not to mention there is the Contemporary Jewish Museum with an addition by Libeskind and the African Museum of the Diaspora. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, etc etc.
I agree that SF is lacking compared to say New York. I do think SF is at least an equal to Philly, if not above it in terms of arts/culture.
Don't forget that Manhattan is yuppified, but no place on earth has such a concentration of arts/culture. Opera tickets start at $200-300. A lot of this stuff ain't cheap. A poor artsy fartsy city may spring a generation of artists, but it's not going to support the level of opera/theater/arts museums relying on large endowments/donations that a wealthy city will.
SFMOMA raised all private funding for a $600M addition and additions to its collections and outreach. That just isn't happening in a non-yuppified city.
And a yuppified city will build great cultural venues that attract a non-yuppified class of people looking for a great scene. You guys really have it all wrong.
If you want great culture, art, and everything at your disposal, you're not going to go to Detroit before you go to NYC, Chicago, LA, SF, Philly, Boston, DC, etc. If you're a starving artist - you might take an easier route of living and go to Detroit, or you may throw your chips in and go for a more expensive city in the hopes you'll get picked up by a prominent gallery. Swings both ways. If you play in the Symphony, you're likely unionized and paid very well and your goal is to play in a Big Five (of which Philly has one and SF doesn't). If you can't get into a Big Five, you always have DC at the Kennedy Center or SF at Davies (both top 5 for pay) or Pittsburgh or LA (also top 5/10).
The most prominent museum in SF is closed until early 2016. I like SF, and do think it's overall superior to Philly, but on arts? No. Just like Philly has the superior skyline, I think this is a clear win here. Yuppification is not a clear indicator of culture...
Yea, culture is very important, something that for all its wealth and prominence, I find the Bay Area to underachieve in. Awesome links.
How so, what is the Bay Area lacking exactly?
I think Philly is lacking really high quality arts.
And we all know SFs skyline is far more impressive has far more tall building.
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